Apr 19
A Discourse in Staff Etiquette
This is something that's been on my mind for a while. It mainly has to do with the staff of a certain forum, namely Smashboards. What's the problem, you ask? I'll make it quick and to the point: the staff. Now, for the most part, I have nothing against the staff, but the two main staff members I have a beef with are admins, and thus very prevalent in the site's daily goings-on.
Now, you're probably wondering what this has to do with this site, or the blog title. The explanation is quite simple: the issues I have with these admins will be explained as what not to do as an admin, and show things I would never do. I like to think of it as me giving these admins a lesson in ethics as a leader.
Now, the first admin I'd like to call out for her bad ethics is Azua, a.k.a. Queen Killjoy. As a person, I see nothing wrong with her aside from a bit of an attitude problem, but as an admin, I see a disgrace. Why? Well, Azua has done several noteworthy things that haven't exactly helped the site.
Once such action revolves around a mod, Umbreon. Two of the site's members filed complaints in the Forum Disputes section, which is normally only visible to admins and the thread-starter. These complaints were in regards to Umbreon and his shoddy mod skills. Azua fielded the complains, and agreed that Umbreon was abusing his power. However, in a fashion neither Azua or the members know, Umbreon saw the thread. He proceeded to interrogate the two members in an AIM chat, and even invited several other members that frequent the section Umbreon mods to watch. In the process, Umbreon revealed that the two members had filed complaints. Such an action is grounds to demod, which Azua promptly did. However, within a week, Umbreon noticed that not all of his mod abilities had been stripped. Rather than fix the problem and take away those abilities, Azua re-modded Umbreon, who quickly went back to abusing his mod powers.
As an admin myself (not on Smashboards, obviously), I find this repulsive. This is lesson number one, so to speak. If you have demodded a mod for a legitimate reason, don't give them their status back, PERIOD. In this case, it was due to a glitch that allowed Umbreon to have a little more power. So, what should Azua REALLY have done? She should have stripped the remaining powers and fixed the "glitch" that allowed Umbreon to keep his powers. If she didn't know how, she should have simply asked another admin to either help or do it for her. Umbreon did not deserve to be a mod, and should not have gotten his powers back. I wouldn't dream of keeping such a power-abusive, rule-breaking mod on my team.
Another incident involving Azua: Airgemini. Air is the mod of two character forums. In one of the forums, he had only made TWO POSTS prior to being modded. It's a well-known fact that Air and Azua are buddy-buddy. So, what would I have done? I would have made sure the mod I picked was reasonable and contributed to the forum I made them a mod of. Air has no right modding a forum he rarely posted in prior to becoming a mod, especially where there are much better and knowlegeable candidates.
Now, the other admin I have a beef with is none other than the HEAD admin, MLG_JV. Why? He can't seem to follow his own damn rules. Now, since he's the head admin, it's his forum and he can do what he wants, and I realize that. However, just because he CAN do something doesn't mean he SHOULD. Now, what has he done, exactly? In early March, he posted a new ruleset, including a harsher rule on advertising than in years past (and under Gideon's leadership). The new rule: advertising in a signature can now lead to an infraction. No big deal, right? Well, keep in mind that using sig ads is how I plan to get members HERE, so anything that limits advertising only hurts us and H4x0RZ. Now, what REALLY bothers me is that shortly after JV posted the new rules, he made an announcement to ADVERTISE a promo/contest that had NOTHING TO DO WITH SMASHBOARDS, or even SMASH IN GENERAL.
And that, my friends, is lesson three: if you make rules, follow them. I don't give a shit if it's his site, or if he paid a shitload of cash for it. I don't care if he CAN do it. That's not the point I'm arguing. The point I'm arguing is that he SHOULDN'T do it. I find it repulsive that an admin could go and make advertising rules even harsher than before and then go right back around and make an ANNOUNCEMENT to advertise.
So, I'll wrap this up.
The three main points of my rambling:
1) If a mod violates your trust or becomes abusive, demod them and keep them demodded
2) Make sure the staff you're surrounding yourself with is competent and knowledgeable of the content you're putting them in charge of
3) Obey your own rules
I hope I've made my point clear. I'm well aware that there are many more things mods/admins should and should not do, but these were the main three I wanted to point out. Perhaps now you can catch people on other sites you frequent being bad admins.
Apr 19
Religion in Schools: Why it's Dangerous to Society
This is a paper I did for my english class (the original can be found at http://www.scribd.com/doc/14344128/Nuckols-P3Religion-in-Schools-Redeux). I thought it would help to post it here, as well as the original link.
So, here it is:
As we all know, religion is a very touchy subject. It is also a very prominent part of society. It has the power to change lives, destroy families, and even start wars. While it has its benefits, it is also a very harmful power. This power, however, has spread outside of churches, mosques, temples, and other religious institutions, and has woven its way into schools, public areas, and even the government. However, it’s at its most destructive in schools, where children can be molded and influenced with relative ease. It is my opinion that no educational facility, public or private, should promote any form of religion. I have even gone so far as to interview two individuals that have at one point attended a “parochial” school to further this opinion.
Let’s start by looking at the problem at a glance. Parochial schools are private schools that teach around a certain religion. Since these schools are private, this is entirely legal. However, there are problems that are bound to arise. Just because a student attends one of these schools doesn’t mean they agree with everything the school says, which can lead to confusion, frustration, and other negative emotions. I observed this in a current student enrolled in a parochial school in Illinois. My interviewee has requested that neither his name nor the school’s name be revealed. When I interviewed him, he told me some of his feelings towards his school. Here is a snippet of the interview conducted on AIM:
- Quote:
Me (9:16:45 PM): Why?
My Interviewee (9:17:05 PM): thnigs I'm told in school.
Me (9:17:09 PM): Such as?
My Interviewee (9:18:06 PM): stuff that's kinda made me deel mad. I've noticed I've become less tolerant of anything religous, be it christian or atheiest. x.x
My Interviewee (9:18:11 PM): *feel mad
Me (9:18:33 PM): Why do you think that is?
My Interviewee (9:20:28 PM): because I disagree with a lot of they teach, but I'm told that it's the "only way to live". I've talekd to family about school and they dont agree with everything either. And they told me it's a catholic school. they're gonna be biased and say it's the only way to live. it's one sided...that helps but it doesnt stop it.
As my interviewee stated, his parochial school has left him confused and frustrated (Anonymous). Now, you may be wondering: why would someone attend a parochial school they don’t agree with? That leads to my next issue with parochial schools: they’re the only legitimate alternative to incompetent or high-risk public schools. This is what both of my interviewees had in common. My mother, Patty Southworth, was raised in Miami, Florida. Her parents sent her to a parochial school as an alternative to Miami’s violent downtown public school system, where shootings were disturbingly common (Southworth). The same goes for my interviewee in Illinois. His parents were able to send him to a parochial school to prevent him from getting wrapped up in a violent public school system (Anonymous).
Another problem is that religion is so well-rooted in society that parochial schools are regarded as being the best thing parents can do for their children. Having no parochial schools and not having religion in our public schools seems absurd and blasphemous to them. Our legal system is doing a fine job, however, of getting religion out of public schools. In fact, an Illinois judge recently ruled a law requiring students of impressionable ages to consider religion during the moment of silence to be unconstitutional (Church and State—Moment of Silence). And slowly, states and schools across the country are doing the same, if they haven’t already. The only remaining problem lies in parochial schools that shove religion down their students’ throats, whether the students want it or not, and serve as the only safe school for the students.
There are only a handful of solutions to this problem. The best two are full-out eradication of these parochial schools, or providing other alternatives. I personally would be willing to see either of these plans be taken into effect, but the most reasonable solution would be to provide other alternatives while keeping some parochial schools for families that actually want the school’s religious beliefs to be shoved down their children’s throats.
There are several decent alternatives to parochial schools, some of which are already being used. In New York City, four Catholic schools have been turned into public charter schools. These public charter schools should in theory be a safe alternative to the violence of NYC’s public school system, and are non-denominational, so religion will no longer be shoved down students’ throats (Church and State—NYC Catholic Schools).
Another alternative is being used in Victoria, Australia. They are offering ethics classes in their public schools in competition with religion classes (Doerr). It’s this alternative I base my “ideal” alternative on.
My ideal alternative would be to offer more ethics classes in public schools, as well as replacing some of the parochial schools with non-denominational schools that teach secular ethics. As New York and Victoria have demonstrated, there is some expectation that such a plan wouldn’t be too farfetched. Also, colleges around the United States teach ethics classes. It wouldn’t be too difficult to start teaching those classes sooner, such as middle school, or even elementary school. As a teacher-in-training, I see no difficulty in a teacher taking a small chunk of time in an elementary school class to teach some kind of standard ethics and explaining why certain things are wrong from a secular perspective. Also, some high schools offer psychology and sociology classes, so it’s not too outlandish to think that some classes in ethics could be offered. Granted, in public schools, this could be somewhat situational, and some people don’t think it’s the school’s place to teach ethics. However, I’d like to mention that such ethics as the ones I’m proposing are almost universal, and can be easily taught from a secular perspective. Also, if it’s not the school’s place to teach ethics, whose is it? If the parents themselves aren’t teaching their children proper ethics, then why shouldn’t the school take over? I’d like to think of schools as a secondary source of ethics, with the parents as the primary source. If the parents can’t teach their children ethics, it would be up to the secondary source. It’s like my mother said in our interview: “children have to get their ethics from SOMEWHERE” (Southworth).
I’ll openly admit that most of this is opinionated. However, I strongly feel that the problem of religion in schools is pertinent and among the central concerns of education. I also feel that the solutions I have outlined, while revolutionary and bold, would be the best, most efficient ways to deal with this problem. I understand that one person alone can’t tackle this problem in one paper, but as someone that wants to become a teacher myself, I would love to know that schools, both public and private, can stop shoving religion down students’ throats and potentially turning them into religious zealots that become closed-minded and destructive to society.
Food for thought :B
4:27 AM Jul 31
